With the presidential election next year some people fear politics is getting in the way of preserving Kenya's ecosystem.

Karanja Njoroge, the executive director of the Green Belt Movement, told Al Jazeera: "Politics is making the declamation of this forest to take a back seat."

"That doesn't worry me," he said. "I think we will sooner or later get back to the business of reclaiming this forest. But the 2012 politics is coming into play and these things are in the back burner of most of our policy makers."